Page 129 of Tell Me I'm Enough

She puts her hands over her face, trying to cover up her embarrassment. “I’m so stupid…”

“You’re not stupid, Simone.”

“I am,” she argues. “I really thought the boy I met in fucking middle school was going to be the one…that I was gonna have this rare love story that made it, and have this picture-perfect life I delusionally planned out in my head.”

“You can still find someone who loves you the way you deserve, I promise. You’ll still get that perfect story…it’ll just be with someone else now.”

She shakes her head. “I don’t want to date ever again.”

I laugh a little. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do…what’s the point?”

“To find someone who makes you happy,” I tell her.

She looks up at me. “You don’t date…I’ve never seen you do more than sleep with a girl.”

I don’t even do that…

I decide to get a little vulnerable with her in this moment, though. “I’ve only ever dated two girls before…well, really only one, and it was in high school.”

“Really?” she asks. “What happened with them?”

I scratch the back of my neck. “Um…they both…played me or cheated on me.”

She throws her head back. “Geez. See…what’s the point? Does everyone cheat?”

“No…I never did…and I never would. Therearegood guys out there, and you’ll find one of them, I promise.”

She huffs. “Yeah, right…I doubt it.”

“Do you know how much of a catch you are?”

She gets quiet.

I hate how she doesn’t see her own worth. She puts on this front with everyone else, but inside, she’s still that little girl,needing her dad’s love and attention, growing up looking for it in a guy who didn’t deserve to have her in the first place.

“Look at me,” I tell her.

She looks up and wipes the rest of her tears away.

“Why do you think you have to give every piece of yourself to everyone around you…but you don’t expect the same in return?”

She looks down, thinking about it, and then back up at me. “I don’t know. I’ve just always felt like I have to be perfect for everyone…for them towantto be around me…and…and if I hold them to the same standard…then they’ll just leave, because that’s asking for too much.”

“Being treated the way you treat other people willneverbe asking for too much. It’s actually the bare minimum, Simone.”

She looks away. “Yeah, that sounds nice and all, but it’s not reality.”

I take her chin, making her look back at me. “It is…you set the standard for who you allow in your life, and how they get to treat you.”

A knock on the door pulls us both from the conversation.

Chase pops his head in. “Sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt. I just needed to grab something.”

He gives me a look, smirking, and I shake my head, silently telling him to shut the hell up.

Once he’s gone again, Simone yawns. “I’m exhausted.”